


now we're in the ring (and we're coming for blood)

by Mistropolis



Series: Through mist and lives and pain and hope [5]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Happy Murder Family, I'll call it the SHSL Rewritten AU for now, Implied/Referenced Torture, No Spoilers, in some ways, murders abound my fam, there's that jazz abt shsl despairs too, this is what I thought the endgame of v3 is, tho this is more like an origin story, unless you count those for sdr2/drae, wait for the twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 07:01:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11270412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistropolis/pseuds/Mistropolis
Summary: [ shsl rewritten au ]You take a brief glance at the pink-stained, smashed-to-bits cadavers, and will yourself not to flinch."Lovely, isn't it?" The girl's smile is infectious, and even now you find it hard to think she has been a spokesperson for a project on hope and talents.(Or; how a dreamer makes their nightmare reality)





	now we're in the ring (and we're coming for blood)

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, as the tags indicate, this fic is based on what I thought the V3 endgame would be, though this is like an origin story for how everything leads to the end. I'm not that good at writing DR-style stuff, hope you guys don't mind ^^"

You take a seat down at the chamber. It is mostly empty, save for the corpses all strung together around the edges of it.

You are not sure why you are willing to wait for this inexplicable leader of Saishuu Academy to see you. She―according to your researches it's a female―appears to the general public with a benevolent smile and sweet disposition, but only if the public knows what lurks beneath.

If only you did.

This is the main site where the murders take place. It's a chamber for a reason. You think it's called the "Chamber of Catharsis", isn't it? Where her followers take up knives, maces, swords, and weapons of any sort to wreak havoc on their victims. 

She's here.

"Oh, sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. SHSL Detective," The girl beams, and that could had been lovely to anyone, but not him, not a truth-seeker like him.

"So, what do you say about the proposal?"

You take a deep breath to right yourself. "How about you give me a tour? Give me more ideas about Project Saishuu?"

"No problem~~★" She gets up, and instead of immediately leaving the Chamber, she grips your hand and leads you to the corners ( _oh God, those bodies_ ). "How about feasting your eyes on them lovely bones first?"

You take a brief glance at the pink-stained, smashed-to-bits cadavers, and will yourself not to flinch.

"Lovely, isn't it?" The girl's smile is infectious, and even now you find it hard to think she has been a spokesperson for a project on hope and talents.

"So… The tour and introduction?…"

"Oh! Right! Let's get outside first!"

 

 

♟

 

 

"This is where we design the machines! Hey, Iruma-san?" A girl with pastel pink dress and black belts around her torso turns around to the leader. "Who's that emo guy behind you?"

"He's going to be our recruit soon! So?"

"Oh yeah, the machines," Iruma taps the bulky, black-painted machine beside her. "This new baby can grind a body to dust in no time!"

"Cool! That's really great! Keep it up!" 

The leader gestures for you to keep following, and articulates about the project.

"Project Saishuu is all about spreading despair as we know it! We students of Saishuu Academy deeply believe that despair can't just be achieved as easily as brainwashing," She keeps a smile on. The balm she probably uses looks like blood.

"We recruit further people to our cause, not by some silly brainwashing, but for much more advanced techniques, like physical torture, mental torture, coercion, mind games, just generally fun stuff all around!" She skips in her steps, almost like an innocent little girl. 

"What exactly is Saishuu Academy in the past? Wasn't the school about… hope?" You ask quietly.

"Hope is noooooooooo fun!" She pouts, again looking uncannily like a young girl. "That original principal only built Hope's Peak to nuture humanity's hope. How boring is that?"

"He should be grateful that _I_ rebuilt the school. We renamed the school and made it out to be the original Hope's Peak. Ya know, nuturing talents and everything. The public is so easily fooled."

"However, we add a different feature; even though people still admire talents, there's no doubt that there will be people who also fear talents after that pathetic excuse of a SHSL Despair. And so we made it a school to _imprison_ talents."

The leader now turns a corner, and you see a vague shadow in the background hitting spiked orbs against the wall. You could hear bloodcurdling screams ringing out from that direction.

You refrain from imagining what happened there and follow her.

 

 

♚

 

 

"Ouma! I'm not disturbing you right now, am I?"

The diminutive boy―not as small as that shadow, but still small―with a crown on his head and a tattered cape, turns around to greet them.

"Hello, detective boy over there, you look gorgeous." That sneer on Ouma's face doesn't help comforting you at all. "Coming here to watch what's going down on the Colosseum?"

You look down the balcony.

Down in the arena, people wearing strange costumes with decidedly lethal weapons charge at each other. Blood flows everywhere, chunks of gore from the injuries dropping to the floor in a pattern that almost looks aesthetically-pleasing if not for what materials are used to create that.

You fight to keep the bile and vomit from coming up your throat. Your brain hurts from just watching all these.

"Hey, wanna see some cool shit?" Ouma's shrewd tongue lash out at you with the question.

Before you could answer, Ouma claps his hands, and a battered, bruised person in tattered armour slowly hobbles out of the door behind. They kneel down instantly.

Ouma's malicious smile isn't any good indication at all. "Beg. Beg for your release."

It is like the prisoner is alive all of a sudden, their eyes animated and charged with an unspeakable emotion ( _let me go! let me go!_ You can nearly hear them scream). "Ohhh my lord Ouma, my supreme leader Ouma… Please let me leave…"

"Allllright, since you are so nice." You see no mercy in Ouma's eyes. Only excitement and anticipation.

"I'll let you have 10 secondsssss. One, two, three…"

The prisoner lets out a primal scream, and instantaneously run along the spiral staircase, snaking the outline of the arena that you two get up on. They run with abandon, every movement instinctual and without any logic ( _it has abandoned them long ago_ ).

"… Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten!"

Before you could hear it yourself, you already know from the explosive wound on the prisoner's back that they are dead. It's fortunate that the prisoner isn't that close to you, but those organs ( _liver, small intestines,_ you note with repressed repulsion) are still everywhere, close enough that you think you'd choke on your own vomit.

You want to wipe that smug smile on Ouma's face immediately, but decide that won't do anything.

"So, Project Saishuu…"

"Oh right! Sorry for getting derailed every minute. Silly 'ol me!" The leader takes you down the staircase leading to the audience. You keep your eyes glued to the arena (completely unexpected, what are you doing that?).

"We are trained at a young age, you know. At the very beginning, our mentors gave us excellent education through videos." ( _that's just brainwashing again_ ) You thought as the red-clad fighter axes his opponent.

"We are taught from young that nothing in this world matters, because eventually everything fades. Only despair remains." She giggles, and your eyes detect the visuals of a blue-clad girl driving a sword deeper and deeper into her opponent's chest.

"And so! We know when that bitch failed, we elites have to be the one to step up." She finally pauses, and the image of bloodshed and agony are seared into your retinas.

"Hey! That idiot over there!" You snap your head to the direction of the voice. It belongs to a girl with pigtails and wearing a blue dress, though it looks about red from all the dried blood on it.

"Oh, don't mind him, Chabashira-san, he's just here to see if he could join our project!" The leader snickers. She points towards the little crowd there next to Pigtails. "And that big guy over there is Gonta, that robot is Kiibo, and that executioner over there is Yumeno."

You try to evade their maddening, crazed glances towards you, like you are just another victim for them to toy with. But you force yourself to look at them get to "work": Gonta straight up leading animals out of nowhere to attack the gladiators, Kiibo flying down to an escapee and promptly shocking them to death, and Yumeno cutting a loser in half.

You force yourself to remember why you are doing all these in the first place. 

"We decided to come into this place, to remodel it to our liking. The former Despairs go out to demolish the world at such inopprtune times and with such ineffective methods, so we learnt their mistakes and did this instead." She gestures to the huge hallway, walls plastered with organs and body parts and blood, so much fucking blood.

"We lied to the world outside that this school is for true hope, true talents, but effectively binding at the same time. We both honour and rein in the talented."

 

 

♛

 

 

You are finally out of the Colosseum. You are honestly ashamed that you find relief while people inside keep suffering.

( _It will stop soon. Don't worry._ )

"So you can see, we make this school look like a disciplinary academy with the target of stopping talented kids from doing crazy Despair maneuvers. So here I am, poster girl of the whole project. My music has subliminal messaging that encourages them to join us." She takes out a music player and you debate internally whether to stop her when smooth, silk-like piano music plays.

The leader stares at you expectantly, to gauge how much influence the music has on you, no doubt. Fortunately, you are already used to it, from hearing it so much when your sister plays it―

( _oh god where did she find the knife why are there slits everywhere why is there blood everywhere everywhere everywhere―_ )

"Are you okay?"

The soft, motherly voice did not register until you see a golden-haired, mature-looking girl with maid attire in front of you, looking at you with concern.

"I guess Mr. Detective just isn't used to all these yet. Toujou-san, perhaps you can take him to the infirmary?"

"No problem." Toujou takes you by the arm, and you suppose there's no hope to breaking away from her. Not that you can yet. Your work is not yet done.

"Do you need a drink to calm down, Sir? Perhaps any tea of your preference?" Toujou gets to the counter. 

 _She's not looking at me now. It's my chance―_ "Cousin. Why are you here too?"

Toujou pauses, and looks back at you with disapproving eyes. "Well, cousin of mine, why are _you_ here too?"

"To investigate, obviously. Not sure about you, though."

"A client of mine sent me here. Said their kid didn't sound like himself when she was talking to him, so she grew suspicious of the school." Toujou pours a cup of steaming tea and puts it in front of you.

"So? What do you know about the school? Other than all those despair crap?"

"Big spoiler. Ever since the government changes regulation and gives even more benefits to the talented class to avoid them going all Despair again, the whole public goes ballistic. The girl you just talked to, Akamatsu Kaede, is the one who suggests rebuilding Hope's Peak into Saishuu, so it can both serve the purpose of rewarding and disciplining the talented."

"But she corrupted the school. From a young age, she was targeted by the Remnants since her talent in music is deemed to be a great aid to brainwashing. The Remnants hid her away and nourished her to become the second Enoshima Junko after that Towa girl failed."

"Unlike both Enoshima and Towa, Akamatsu has quite a refined gift to infiltrate rather than outwardly invade the public. Do you know how many kids would kill to keep up their positions as SHSLs? The ones you've seen so far in this school, they are already all criminals before becoming SHSL Despairs. They are all guilty of committing a variety of crimes, like bribery, bullying, fraud, outright physical harm just so they could maintain their prestigious lives as SHSLs."

"But they are all found out, and thrown into this school. At the beginning, Akamatsu has already infiltrated the school. All she needs to do is to brainwash everyone else―but instead of leading them into war with all the other Despairs, she trained them to turn this school into a murder factory―leading people who don't know any better to join under the guise that they too could earn a talent, when really the end goal is to drive them to despair, or kill them when they won't comply."

You nearly choke at the tea Toujou brews for you. So all of your investigation have led to this point. This whole dramatic reveal about the terrors of Saishuu Academy. You know a lot of messed-up things must be going on in there, but you never expected  _this._

"So, when do you plan to save this client you are looking for originally?"

"Who says I'm still looking for them?" Unceremoniously, Toujou takes out a knife.

But you are faster. Before the edge could bite you, you have already pulled the taser you have prepared in advance. It's good that the taser can be hidden inconspicuously in your sleeves. 

The shockwaves only seem to hinder her though. Toujou recovers quickly, her countenance vicious like a wild animal. "Don't fight this, cousin. It's impossible. I've tried to do that, and look where that lands me."

As much as that pains you to say, you sneer at Toujou. "You fell to all those brainwashing crap. I know. In fact, I feel insulted that you don't seem to know I know."

You strike again, this time jamming the taser right at her chest, tuned to the highest voltage. Toujou lets out a helpless yelp before falling to the floor, knocking herself out cold.

You get up, digesting the whole scene that has happened so far. Learning every truth about this school, knowing Toujou herself has submitted to the Despair. 

You won't let all these go to waste. You won't let those people down.

 

 

♞

 

 

You still have a whole echelon of tricks up your sleeves. They just don't know it yet.

That little witch almost looks panicked to see you like that. Why is her so gleeful when she executed that innocent again? You don't remember, but you tase her anyway.

Surprisingly enough, Iruma doesn't put up a fight at all. She looks all despair-crazed for a second, but a second, more thorough glance at you have her cowering back immediately.

You survey the control board. First you click at the main power source button. Then 

.

.

.

.

.

"Shuuichi, it's 1:30 already."

Saihara jolts out of his deep slumber, the remnants of the nightmare he was having crumbling into dust. Before they utterly retreat to the recess of his mind, Saihara desperately grasps onto a few fragments.  _Project Saishuu. Closed-room mass murder. Poster girl. Despair. Talent._

_Kirumi?_

"Told you again and again not to overwork yourself, and you. Never. Listen." Kirumi sighs exasperatedly, picking up the emptied juice box and drained porcelain cup (he was drinking coffee?). "And I told you not to rely on these crap to pull an all-nighter. Did you seriously put those stay-awake drug into your drinks again? Even just fucking juice?"

"Watch your language, Kirumi." Saihara cracks a  smile despite the reprimand.

"I'll watch my tongue when you learn to stop pushing yourself all the time, Shuuichi my cousin." Then she walks off, slamming the door just to drive in the point.

Saihara's mirth is short-lived, however. The playful banter only alleviates his fear for a moment, and in no time he is thinking about that dreadful nightmare again.

The nightmare he had isn't the first. In fact, ever since he learnt the truth of those mind enhancement drugs and the truth of him, Kirumi, and many others being unwilling (unknowing) test subjects, they only become more intense, more  _real._ For instance, this time he can remember several of the test subject names and even their faces. And somehow his mind can accurately recreate a believable scenario where everyone is an SHSL Despair.

Their bloodthirsty eyes, remorseless demeanors still haunt his consciousness, and in his sleep it was only more concrete, more stupefying.

 

 

★

 

 

When he reported to the government officials who hired him at the first place, the paranoia only culminates. 

"You mean, we shouldn't do anything about this at all?"

The contact person looks as unimpressed as ever. "The ones you have mentioned there were never guilty. None of them have evidently committed any crime, not to mention, some of them even show considerable talents."

"Talent doesn't mean they are exempt from despair! The original SHSL Despair is an SHSL Analyst herself―"

"Enough!" The contact person slams down Saihara's report file onto the table. "We will not hear more of your deluded theories, Mr. Saihara. If you have no concrete evidence that supports any of your hypotheses, then we may as well just terminate your services right here!" 

The scene where he caught the Remnant pops up in his mind again. This era, Remnants of Despair are mostly unheard of, not to mention "officially extinct". But the truth Saihara finds changes the whole game.

It was at that time when Saihara finds out straight from that particular Remnant with crooked teeth in the position of a pharmacy general manager that the Remnants are still alive and well, still worshipping their goddess Enoshima. After that plan of uploading her AI to live humans and Towa Monaca as a whole failed, they rebounded with a most brilliant plan: to recreate more SHSL Analysts with mind enhancement drugs.

"Goddess Enoshima is herself because she can see through everything, see how lethargic the whole world is," The Remnant smiles his crooked grin. "so obviously the best path to recreating her is to make everyone see through the world as it is and despairs."

Before Saihara could ask more, before he even thinks of recording this testimony, the guy already finishes himself with a knife. 

And because of all this, he can't… He can't………

………… "Are you still here?"

Saihara snaps out of his memory. 

"Say, what if I do find evidence?"

"You think you can find evidence?"

"After all," Saihara tugs on his cap a bit. "I _am_ the SHSL Detective. So? What do you say? What if those talented children are criminals?"

The contact person nips on his finger nails. Then he replies, hesitantly. "Okay. There is talk that a prison school be opened for talented kids who are also criminals. If you can find evidence that they are indeed criminals, I'll direct them to this school, so they can be remodelled."

"Thank you for your time." Saihara tugs his cap even lower on his way out, carefully hiding his mirthful grin.

 

 

★

 

 

The next time they meet is at the eponymous prison school, Saishuu Academy.

"So, I thought you are only going to dig out the dirt on those kids. What did _you_ do?"

Saihara puts up a remorseless facade. "Faked evidence for a mother who kills her two children. Also, perjury."

"God, how could this?… Never mind. So now you are here too, what would you do?"

"Whatever to get back into society's good graces."

"Alright, fine. Good luck, Mr. Saihara."

As soon as the contact person is gone, Saihara rushes to the school office where he's expected. A crowd of people are already there, surrounding the fifteen SHSL Despairs.

"Is the memory-purging machine ready?"

"Yes. In no time they will forget everything about their criminal lives and this school."

"Good. When they have turned to a life of crime, that had been enough evidence that they have submitted to despair… But I want to give them a chance."

"By reverting them to a blank slate, we can see if they have instinctual attraction to despair. If they can truly revel in despair."

"So that's why you place Monokuma here and plan the mutual killing game?"

"Yes. They are traditional symbols of despair, after all. If they are SHSL Despairs, they will definitely love them…"

The crowd looks at each other, almost starting to seem like they will give up the whole thing, but Saihara won't let them do just that. "Don't forget how much your own government has lied to you. You are only doing what is right to balance the wrong."

Meek "yeah"s ring out. Some are much more determined. "We are just doing what's right!"

"Exactly." Saihara grins, joyous in the idea that people are starting to see sense. He is about to leave when one last thing pops in. "Oh. By the way, is the academy on complete lockdown?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then let the show begin."

.

.

.

.

.

The girl awakens. The first question she has in mind is that why she is in a coffin.

"Ah… Ahhhh!" A loss of balance has her stumble out, falling onto the ground. She climbs up, and finds to her surprise that she had been locked in a locker.

"What the?…" The girl struggles to get up, then surveys the room she is in. A conspicuously-empty classroom. 

She walks out and hits somebody (something?) instantly.

"Ahh! I'm sorry!" She walks up to the person she knocks down, a boy in black clothes with a  baseball cap, and helps him up. 

"I'm okay. Did you wake up in a classroom too?"

"Yeah. What's your name?"

"Oh, it's Akamatsu Kaede."

Kaede swears she could see amusement in the boy's eyes for a moment, but it quickly disappears. "Saihara Shuuichi."

"Alright, Saihara-kun. Let's work together to get out of here!" 

"Okay!"

.

.

.

.

.

The dreamer revels in the scene before him.

"Akamatsu Kaede… You were the poster girl. I wonder where all of my other monsters are."

"Enjoy the world's judgement."


End file.
